brocade c class fc switches - isl maximums

[sick_klown]

Hi, I have a question, this is the scenario..

1 c7000 blade enclosure, 16 blades 465, 2 cisco ethernet switches on interconnect bays 1 & 2

2 brocade 4 Gb FC 24 port switches on on interconnect bays 3 & 4 (8 uplink FC ports)

2 brocade DC backbones

1 hp xp 12000

I want to interconnect the blade FC switches with the DC backbones using ISL's (no trunking license available), but I want to ask you if I can connect all the available uplink ports on the switches to the DC backbones:

- 8 uplink ports from interconnect bay 3 to DC backbone 1 and

- 8 uplink ports from interconnect bay 4 to DC backbone 2

I guess that if we make the configuration described above we can balance better the load on the fc ports (zoning 2 servers to each uplink and to the hitachi storage) instead of having all the load through 2 or 3 isl's in each fc switch

Or is there any restriction about the maximum number of isl's I can connect from the c-class FC switches to a san core switch (ie. DC backbone) ??

I appreciate any suggest

Thanks in advance

[Johan Guldmyr · Accepted solution]

Hey, I saw this a little while ago but I couldn't find any documents about this so I did not post anything.

While I was writing this I figured I would take a look in the HP Design Reference guide.

It's pretty big:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DocumentIndex.jsp?contentType=SupportManual&locale=en_US&docIndexId=179911&taskId=101&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=406734

See page 113.

"ISL maximums

You can use all ports on all B-series Fibre Channel switches for ISLs, with a maximum of one half of the total ISL port count configured to the same destination switch.

NOTE:
Some switches require licensing for additional ISL ports.

So, based on that. You can only use 4 out of the 8 ports to the same DC backbone."

[Johan Guldmyr]

Also, great nick :)